agronomists

"Death for a cause unworthy of dying for, was called a "dog's death." "To rush into the thick of battle and to be slain in it," says a Prince of Mito, "is easy enough, and the merest churl is equal to the task; but," he continues, "it is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only when it is right to die.""

"The state built on martial virtues...can never make on earth a "continuing city." Universal and natural as is the fighting instinct in man, fruitful as it has proved to be of noble sentiments and manly virtues, it does not comprehend the whole man. Beneath the instinct to fight there lurks a diviner instinct to love."

"Bushido as an independent code of ethics may vanish, but its power will not perish from the earth; its schools of martial prowess or civic honor may be demolished, but its light and its glory will long survive their ruins. Like its symbolic flower, after it is blown to the four winds, it will still bless mankind with the perfume with which it will enrich life. Ages after, when its customaries shall have been buried and its very name forgotten, its odors will come floating in the air as from a far-off unseen hill."

"We needed no Shakespeare to feel—though, perhaps, like the rest of the world, we needed him to express it—that mercy became a monarch better than his crown, that it was above his sceptered sway."

"Did not Socrates, all the while he unflinchingly refused to concede one iota of loyalty to his dæmon, obey with equal fidelity and equanimity the command of his earthly master, the State? His conscience he followed, alive; his country he served, dying. Alack the day when a state grows so powerful as to demand of its citizens the dictates of their conscience!"

"As the sun in its rising first tips the highest peaks with russet hue, and then gradually casts its rays on the valley below, so the ethical system which first enlightened the military order drew in course of time followers from amongst the masses. Democracy raises up a natural prince for its leader, and aristocracy infuses a princely spirit among the people. Virtues are no less contagious than vices."

"Chivalry is a flower no less indigenous to the soil of Japan than its emblem, the cherry blossom; nor is it a dried-up specimen of an antique virtue preserved in the herbarium of our history. It is still a living object of power and beauty among us; and if it assumes no tangible shape or form, it not the less scents the moral atmosphere, and makes us aware that we are still under its potent spell. The conditions of society which brought it forth and nourished it have long disappeared; but as those far-off stars which once were and are not, still continue to shed their rays upon us, so the light of chivalry, which was a child of feudalism, still illuminates our moral path, surviving its mother institution."

"All the sartorial ingenuity of mankind has not yet succeeded in sewing an apron that will efficaciously hide our sense of shame. That samurai was right who refused to compromise his character by a slight humiliation in his youth; "because," he said, "dishonor is like a scar on a tree, which time, instead of effacing, only helps to enlarge.""

"The tripod that supported the framework of Bushido was said to be Chi, Jin, Yu, respectively Wisdom, Benevolence, and Courage. A samurai was essentially a man of action. Science was without the pale of his activity. He took advantage of it in so far as it concerned his profession of arms. Religion and theology were relegated to the priests; he concerned himself with them in so far as they helped to nourish courage."

"We knew Benevolence was a tender virtue and mother-like. If upright Rectitude and stern Justice were peculiarly masculine, Mercy had the gentleness and the persuasiveness of a feminine nature. We were warned against indulging in indiscriminate charity, without seasoning it with justice and rectitude."

"The Yamato spirit is not a tame, tender plant, but a wild—in the sense of natural—growth; it is indigenous to the soil; its accidental qualities it may share with the flowers of other lands, but in its essence it remains the original, spontaneous outgrowth of our clime. But its nativity is not its sole claim to our affection. The refinement and grace of its beauty appeal to our æsthetic sense as no other flower can. We cannot share the admiration of the Europeans for their roses, which lack the simplicity of our flower. Then, too, the thorns that are hidden beneath the sweetness of the rose, the tenacity with which she clings to life, as though loth or afraid to die rather than drop untimely, preferring to rot on her stem; her showy colors and heavy odors—all these are traits so unlike our flower, which carries no dagger or poison under its beauty, which is ever ready to depart life at the call of nature, whose colors are never gorgeous, and whose light fragrance never palls. Beauty of color and of form is limited in its showing; it is a fixed quality of existence, whereas fragrance is volatile, ethereal as the breathing of life. So in all religious ceremonies frankincense and myrrh play a prominent part. There is something spirituelle in redolence. When the delicious perfume of the sakura quickens the morning air, as the sun in its course rises to illumine first the isles of the Far East, few sensations are more serenely exhilarating than to inhale, as it were, the very breath of beauteous day."

"The present system of paying for every sort of service was not in vogue among the adherents of Bushido. It believed in a service which can be rendered only without money and without price. Spiritual service, be it of priest or teacher, was not to be repaid in gold or silver, not because it was valueless but because it was invaluable."

"Pilgrimages to all sorts of uncanny places—to execution grounds, to graveyards, to houses reputed to be haunted, were favorite pastimes of the young. In the days when decapitation was public, not only were small boys sent to witness the ghastly scene, but they were made to visit alone the place in the darkness of night and there to leave a mark of their visit on the trunkless head."

""Bushi no nasaké"—the tenderness of a warrior—had a sound which appealed at once to whatever was noble in us; not that the mercy of a samurai was generically different from the mercy of any other being, but because it implied mercy where mercy was not a blind impulse, but where it recognized due regard to justice, and where mercy did not remain merely a certain state of mind, but where it was backed with power to save or kill."

"A "Naturfolk" learns by intimate contact with nature that there is a healing power in the flower and the grass, in the mountains and streams, in the rain and the clouds. He comes to see gods working in these phenomena, and if they are of divine origin do they not contain goodly qualities? Why seek afar for the divine? It is even in the objects around you. They are good and just. Why seek elsewhere for justice and goodness? So, to live a natural life is to be just and good. There is no evil in nature. What seems to be evil is the tipping of the balance scale. Evil is immoderation. All natural appetites are good and they become evil only when indulged in to excess. This is Shinto, the Way of the Gods, naïve primitive teaching aboriginal to the soil of Japan."

"I admit that there may be unnecessary niceties in ceremonious etiquette, but whether it partakes as much of folly as the adherence to ever-changing fashions of the West, is a question not very clear to my mind. Even fashions I do not consider solely as freaks of vanity; on the contrary, I look upon these as a ceaseless search of the human mind for the beautiful. Much less do I consider elaborate ceremony as altogether trivial; for it denotes the result of long observation as to the most appropriate method of achieving a certain result. If there is anything to do, there is certainly a best way to do it, and the best way is both the most economical and the most graceful."

"A typical samurai calls a literary savant a book-smelling sot. Another compares learning to an ill-smelling vegetable that must be boiled and boiled before it is fit for use. A man who has read a little smells a little pedantic, and a man who has read much smells yet more so; both are alike unpleasant. The writer meant thereby that knowledge becomes really such only when it is assimilated in the mind of the learner and shows in his character."

"Tranquillity is courage in repose. It is a statical manifestation of valor, as daring deeds are a dynamical. A truly brave man is ever serene; he is never taken by surprise; nothing ruffles the equanimity of his spirit. In the heat of battle he remains cool; in the midst of catastrophes he keeps level his mind. Earthquakes do not shake him, he laughs at storms. We admire him as truly great, who, in the menacing presence of danger or death, retains his self-possession; who, for instance, can compose a poem under impending peril or hum a strain in the face of death. Such indulgence betraying no tremor in the writing or in the voice, is taken as an infallible index of a large nature—of what we call a capacious mind (yoyū), which, for from being pressed or crowded, has always room for something more."

"Plant genetic resources are seldom 'raw materials'; they are the expression of the current wisdom of farmers who have played a highly significant role in the building up of the world's genetic resource base... As is already happening in my country, farmers and national genebanks in developing countries can work together to preserve and expand crop genetic diversity on behalf of all humanity."

"If we really care about biodiversity, if we really care about carbon that is in the peatlands, if we really care about the Indigenous people, why are we not putting our money where our mouths are?"

"Anybody who's working with these issues — biodiversity, climate change, and the underlying drivers of it — realize the interconnectedness of it,"

"It is also the fulfilment of a dream I held since the age of ten – that these vegetables would be valued and accessible to all who need them for food, nutrition, health security, and economic empowerment."

"Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food."

"If you look at the way the world operates, it’s almost blind to the fact that women bear the biggest burden and brunt of climate change."

"It is a profound honour. This award is the continent’s foremost recognition of individuals and institutions transforming farming from a struggle for survival into a thriving enterprise. For me, it affirms that African indigenous vegetables are central to the transformation of African food systems."

"Most of us enjoy or need a cup of tea or coffee at regular intervals, but with a within easy reach of the kitchen it is a very good reason to vary the flavours of the cuppa!"

"For example, indigenous bambara nuts and pigeon pea yield relatively better in low fertility soils and with low rainfall, compared with beans," she notes. "And this allows a diversified, sustainable production model that insures nutritional security and prosperity."

"I’m standing outside Jane Edmanson’s home, drenched by the flash floods sweeping the city. A tour of her garden, I assume, is out of the question. “Nonsense!” she says, zipping up her coat. “There’s no such thing as ‘gardening weather’. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining, you just get out there and do what you can.” She strides through a muddy garden bed to get to her , then yanks off a sprig and crushes it. “Smell that,” she says, lifting it to my nose. “Isn’t it marvellous?” Her front yard is a jumble of flowers, s, trees and herbs. Some might consider it a smidge “overgrown”; she prefers the word “full”. She adores bushes that spill onto paths and sprouting in the cracks."

"I don’t believe we can address the issues of nutrition security, poverty, and health in Kenya without relying on African indigenous crops. With a soaring food crisis, and maize harvests predicted to be 16 percent below former years as a result of changing Kenyan weather patterns, the only grains that could adequately replace maize in my opinion would be indigenous millets and sorghum, which are more drought tolerant."

"s like , s and s will flower better if any dead spent flowers are snipped off."

"More and more people are becoming aware of herbs and appreciating the pleasure these plants give in the garden, kitchen and for cosmetics, medicines and s around the house. I couldn't live without my ."

"Australian didn't come of age until 's contribution. Her creative genius and her philosophy of integrating the house and garden into the landscape have had a huge influence on our garden history."

"“I’ve been doing it for 34 years,” says Jane Edmanson. “Can you imagine that?” Edmanson is speaking about her time on , where she has been a since the show began back in 1990. Outside of that role, the gardening expert has also published books on propagation and planting, and in 2004 received an medal for services to . She feels “very lucky” to have made a career out of her passion."

"I started with nothing; and reached where I did."

"I never look at competition but work on how to make my wine better."

""Honey equals income, equals jobs, equals gender equality, equals conservation.”"

"My community of 300,000 people depends on nature for livelihood. We find daily solutions in our forest and in our farmlands. But our natural resources face a lot of challenges deforestation, over-exploitation, encroachment and poor soil conservation. And these are made worse by gender inequality, cultural barriers and little or no knowledge about the goodness of nature."

"We can't fight the climate emergency if we cannot protect and regenerate our land."

"Nature remains our greatest ally to reach our climate mitigation targets. Planting trees is essential, but we need to raise a forest generation that will thrive and live in harmony with nature."

"We have from the foregoing Experiments many proofs of the very great and different quantities of moisture imbibed and perspired by different kinds of Trees, and also of the influence of the several states of the air, as to warm or cold, wet or dry, have on that perspiration. We see also what stores of moisture nature has provided in the Earth against a dry season, to answer this great expence of it in the production and support of vegetables; how far the dew can contribute to this supply, and how insufficient its small quantity is towards making good the great demands of perspiration: And that plants can plentifully imbibe moisture thro' their stems and leaves as well as perspire it."

"The bodies which I distilled... (Fig. 38.) were Horn, calculus humanus, Oystershell, Oak, Mustard seed, Indian-wheat, se, Tobacco, oil of Anniseed, oil of Olives, Honey, Wax, Sugar, , , Earth, Walton Mineral, sea Salt, Salt-petre, Tartar, Sal Tartar, , Minium."

"We have... many proofs of the great force with which plants and their several branches and leaves imbibe moisture, up their capillary sap vessels: The great influence the perspiring leaves have in this work..."

"And if we reflect upon the discoveries that have been made in the animal œconomy, we shall find that the most considerable and rational accounts of it have been chiefly owing to the statical examination of their fluids, viz. by enquiring what quantity of fluids, and solids dissolved into fluids, the animal daily takes in for its support and nourishment: And with what force and different rapidities those fluids are carried about in their proper channels, according to the different secretions that are to be made from them: And in what proportion the recrementitious fluid is conveyed away, to make room for fresh supplies; and what portion of this recrement nature allots to be carried off, by the several kinds of emunctories and excretory ducts."

"And since in vegetables, their growth and the preservation of their vegetable life is promoted and maintained, as in animals, by the very plentiful and regular motion of their fluids, which are the vehicles ordained by nature, to carry proper nutriment to every part; it is therefore reasonable to hope, that in them also, by the same method of inquiry, considerable discoveries may in time be made, there being, in many respects, a great analogy between plants and animals."

"I have here, and as occasion offered under several of the foregoing Experiments, only touched upon a few of the most obvious instances, wherein these kind of researches may possibly be of service in giving us useful hints in the culture of plants: Tho' I am very sensible, that it is from long experience chiefly that we are to expect the most certain rules of practice, yet it is withal to be remembred, that the likeliest method to enable us to make the most judicious observations, and to put us upon the most probable means of improving any art, is to get the best insight we can into the nature and properties of those things which we are desirous to cultivate and improve."

"Green s serene retreat, For Philosophic studies meet, Where the good Pastor, Stephen Hales Weigh'd moisture in a pair of scales, To ling'ring death put s and dogs, And stripp'd the skin from living frogs (Nature he loved, her works intent To search, and sometimes, to torment!)"

"Having procured some Norway or Swedish Tar which was thirty Years old... I, according to the Bishop's Prescription, made Tar-water in the proportion of a Gallon of Water to a Quart of Tar, stirring it four Minutes: I then took a Pint of this Tar-water, and evaporated it away in a , cut to a wide Orifice... and weighed."

"When Tar-waters of different Degrees of Strength were put into Florence Flasks, with other inverted Flasks fixed on them, and all were placed in the same Vessel of hot Water; on breaking the upper Flasks, the volatile acid Spirit could very sensibly be tasted, especially that of the stronger Tar-water; which shows that these Waters are impregnated therewith: and which when distilled from Turpentine, Dr. Boerhaave in his Chemistry says, is the best vegetable Acid that is known."

"This Acid in Tar-water will curdle Milk; yet Turpentine-water will not... which shows that Tar is considerably acidulated, by the action of Fire in making."

"I was at first much discouraged, when I reflected on my Rashness, in venturing on an Undertaking, which had baffled the repeated Attempts of the best Philosophers and Chymists, both Ancient and Modern: In so much that they looked upon it as almost impracticable to find out any way to procure a wholesome Drink from Sea-Water."